By Rohan Gunaratna

Introduction

After 9/11, the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, is the second worst act of international terrorism. Hamas led allies killed 1,195 civilians and security forces personnel, maimed and injured 3,400 civilians and security forces, and took hostage 251 security forces and civilians.

The Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023 culminated in a devastating war in Gaza. Similar to how the Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, such catastrophic acts of terrorism results in overwhelming state responses.

The Hamas and its patron the Muslim Brotherhood exploited Israeli’s response that resulted in 65,000 fatalities and over 100,000 injuries. Hamas and its wider network, the Muslim Brotherhood exploited the Gaza war globalising the intifada. Instead of calling for the release of 251 hostages kidnapped by Hamas and its allies, the protests worldwide promoted the Hamas narrative.

Three years after, the Trump Plan offers hope. The Trump Plan delineates three phases to restore peace in the Gaza Strip – first, Hamas and its allies to release all the hostages within 72 hours, second, to disarm, and, three demilitarisation by demobilising Hamas and its allies. Trump has successfully engaged Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to convince Hamas and its allies to release the living and the deceased hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023. There are 20 living and 28 deceased hostages dispersed among threat groups in the Gaza Strip.

The return of the hostages is the only phase in the Trump Plan that can be executed in the immediate term. The Trump Plan has brought hope of a temporary peace in Gaza. The promise of releasing all the living and deceased hostages held by Hamas and its allies created the conditions for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to stop bombing Hamas infrastructure on October 4, 2025.

To move to phase two, will Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, and other threat groups disarm? To demilitarise the Gaza Strip, the threat groups need to transform ideologically and operationally so as not to engage in another attack like October 7, 2023.

The Context

To build permanent peace in Gaza, the starting point is to understand the October 7 attack. Why did Hamas and its allies launch a surprise attack by air, sea and land? With the Hamas’ multi-prong offensive to battle Israel on October 7, the decades-long conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinian people reached an unprecedented level of violence. The fight expanded to a full-scale war drawing in other countries in the Middle East.

Today, the need is to find a lasting solution to the simmering 70 year conflict. This has become more urgent than ever. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a significant impact on regional and international security. It has played a major role in the rise of global terrorism since the 1960s. The world is again reminded of this by Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

Hamas is the Palestinian spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood which is considered a sustained threat to several governments in the Middle East. Why did Hamas attack multiple targets in Israel by breaching the security fence separating the Palestinian enclave of Gaza from the Jewish state? They killed civilians and took many hostages knowing that Israel will respond decisively. The surprise offensive and its tactics clearly reaffirmed Hamas as a terrorist organisation, as designated by the United States of America (US), the United Kingdom, member states of the European Union, and other countries in different regions of the world. This practically means Hamas can no longer be a legitimate participant in any negotiations that aim to achieve a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, Hamas supporters and its patrons see Hamas as a resistance movement. They want Hamas to be a part of the Comprehensive National Palestinian Framework.

To coincide with the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, Israel has declassified an appreciable portion of the October 7 File. To understand Hamas and its allies, I recommend every concerned citizen to read, digest, and understand the contents of the October 7th Files and share your comments with me. The October 7^th Files can be accessed here.